Extreme FPS drops in Windows 7


DJ_Shecky

 

Posted

Ok, this is frustrating me to no end. I recently got Windows 7, and at first CoX ran great on it. However, beginning last night I will get a massive frame rate drop whenever there's a large amount of power effects going off. Say, I use fire sword circle on a large group, and frame rate will briefly go down into single digits. Using shield charge in that same group is even worse, as the game will utterly freeze for a couple seconds. These lag spikes are also happening in teams, as every attack with any kind of graphical effect that is used, whether by a player or an enemy, causes a small frame rate drop. They all start going off at once, it becomes a slide show. Thing is, when I had Vista this never happened, and it's leaving me wondering if there's some setting in Windows 7 that's causing it, but I have no idea what, and I'm pulling my hair out trying to fix it.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.8---

DxDiag gathered at November 8, 2009 14:44 (-08:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P35-DS3L
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 8192MB
.Net Memory Report: 6961MB out of 8190MB available
Page File: 6787MB (1400MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST3808110AS ATA Device) 49191MB out of 76316MB (64%) free
D Drive: (ST380817AS ATA Device) 40827MB out of 76316MB (53%) free
E Drive: (WDC WD3200AAJS-65RYA0 ATA Device) 207578MB out of 305242MB (68%) free
F Drive: (TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652M ATA Device) zero-size drive
L Drive: (IFS YZK9IJSTE SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9442)
Video Memory: 3571 MB
Driver Version: 8.661.0.0
Driver Date: 9/23/2009 2:00:58 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5969
Driver Date: 10/28/2009 11:40:58 AM

Sound Device Description: Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5969
Driver Date: 10/28/2009 11:40:58 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P35-DS3L
Motherboard Version: x.x
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20080710000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1436x838
3D Resolution: 1436x838 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: Yes
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No

Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 23599
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: Unknown (0)
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 0.671
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Compatiblity
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.599

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 202657 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1600.20091015.6T
Installation Directory: E:\Games\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\fonts has 2 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 34 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files


 

Posted

Well, I figured out what was causing it; the real time protection on my anti-virus. Decided to try disabling it this morning, and sure enough, game's playing smooth as silk. Funny that it only affected CoH and none of my other games, but ah well. Just have to remember to re-enable it after I'm done playing.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Theran View Post
Well, I figured out what was causing it; the real time protection on my anti-virus. Decided to try disabling it this morning, and sure enough, game's playing smooth as silk. Funny that it only affected CoH and none of my other games, but ah well. Just have to remember to re-enable it after I'm done playing.
Might want to see if you can put in an exception for the CoH folder and try it with everything still on. If that works then you don't have to worry about shutting it off and turning it back on.


Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ_Shecky View Post
Might want to see if you can put in an exception for the CoH folder and try it with everything still on. If that works then you don't have to worry about shutting it off and turning it back on.
That's a good idea, I'll give it a try. Thanks.


 

Posted

Would you mind letting us know what Anti-Virus program it is? That way if someone else has a problem we can use the information to help them troubleshoot it.


If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.

Black Pebble is my new hero.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
Would you mind letting us know what Anti-Virus program it is? That way if someone else has a problem we can use the information to help them troubleshoot it.
Yeah, it's Microsoft Security Essentials, although this same exact problem occurred back when I tried out Windows 7 RC. Back then I believe I used AVG. I can only guess that AVG was causing my performance woes back then as well. Switched to Security Essentials because I needed a lightweight antivirus to put on my sis computer (1.3 GHz Celeron with 512MB RAM I also upgraded to 7 from XP), and decided to try it myself.

Also to help with any future diagnosis, my performance issues were gradual. Basically a degradation of performance over time that didn't go away with a computer restart.


 

Posted

Interesting. I run MSE on my 32-bit Windows 7 installation on my old computer that dual boots to XP with no problems. I dual boxed that Windows 7 install with my 64-bit Windows 7 install on the new computer (running AVG) during the last double XP weekend with no problems on either computer.

Then again, I haven't run that little memory on any computer since around 2002.


If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.

Black Pebble is my new hero.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
Interesting. I run MSE on my 32-bit Windows 7 installation on my old computer that dual boots to XP with no problems. I dual boxed that Windows 7 install with my 64-bit Windows 7 install on the new computer (running AVG) during the last double XP weekend with no problems on either computer.

Then again, I haven't run that little memory on any computer since around 2002.
For clarification, the 512MB computer is my sis', who doesn't run CoH. I just mentioned hers to explain why I run MSE rather than AVG. My computer, which is the one that had the problems, has 8GB RAM. No idea why my computer has problem with real-time protection and CoH, where yours doesn't, but I've been playing and it looks like adding an exception for my CoH folder fixed it so I can leave the AV on.


 

Posted

The system running 32-bit Win 7 and MSE has 2 GB of RAM. I'm just not impressed with how bloated AVG has been getting of late.


If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.

Black Pebble is my new hero.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Theran View Post
Well, I figured out what was causing it; the real time protection on my anti-virus. Decided to try disabling it this morning, and sure enough, game's playing smooth as silk. Funny that it only affected CoH and none of my other games, but ah well. Just have to remember to re-enable it after I'm done playing.
I am running into the same issue myself after I upgraded to Win7 64 bit from XP 32 bit. For the most part the game played fine when in small groups of ten or less but when the groups became larger it felt as if I ran into a wall and just couldn't do anything.

Playing with anit-virus is the only thing I have not tried yet, any attempts I made at turning down the graphics made no difference what's so ever to improving my performance so this weekend my server will be having a raid in the RWZ so I can test to see if the anti-virus is causing my woes as well. :crosses fingers:

At any rate thanks for the update!


 

Posted

Ok after much experimenting I finally found my problem. Windows was set to Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. So what it looks like windows was doing was that it kept trying to increase the page file size as more data was streaming in and this caused my performance hit.

When I went in a set my page file to a fixed custom size I started to run more smoothly during Hammie and ship raids or any other event where there were thirty plus individuals firing off their powers all at once.